KYIV, Ukraine, Aug 27, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Russia fired a wave of attack
drones and missiles at Ukraine that killed at least four people, authorities
said Tuesday, after a second night of heavy strikes across the war-battered
nation.

Within hours of the barrage, Ukraine claimed fresh advances in its surprise
assault on Russia's Kursk border region and reported taking nearly 600
Russian troops as prisoners in the past three weeks.

"Crimes against humanity cannot be committed with impunity," President
Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on social media, reporting on Tuesday four
killed and 16 wounded.

AFP journalists in the capital Kyiv heard air raid sirens echo over the city
throughout the night as well as an explosion, likely from air defence
systems.

Monday's attack was one of Moscow's largest-ever on Ukraine, prompting Kyiv
push for allies' permission to use Western-provided weapons to strike deep
inside Russia.

- Repeat hotel attack -

Local authorities said earlier that two people had been killed in the
southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and two in the central city of Kryvyi Rig
after a missile struck a hotel.

The hotel strike comes just days after a team working for the Reuters news
agency were hit by a missile in their hotel in the eastern Ukrainian city of
Kramatorsk, killing a safety advisor working with the agency.

The Russian attacks on Monday triggered widespread blackouts and spurred
condemnation from Ukraine's allies in Europe and the United States.

Russia said the attack had targeted infrastructure linked to the Ukrainian
military. NATO member Poland said its airspace was violated during the
barrage, probably by a drone.

Since invading in February 2022, Russia has launched repeated large-scale
drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, including punishing strikes on energy
facilities.

Ukraine's electricity grid operator said Tuesday that emergency blackouts
would be applied throughout the day to reduce pressure on the grid following
the fresh attacks that damaged energy infrastructure nationwide.

Local Ukrainian authorities said separately that three civilians had been
killed in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions in Russian drone
and artillery attacks.

- 'Break through the border' -

Ukrainian forces have been pushing their offensive in Kursk, a surprise
operation that has seen Kyiv gain swathes of territory in three weeks.

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region, which borders Kursk and Ukraine,
said Tuesday he was aware of reports that the Ukrainian army had tried to
cross the border.

"Information has emerged that the enemy is trying to break through the border
of the Belgorod region," its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

"According to the Russian defence ministry, the situation on the border
remains difficult but under control," he said on social media.

Zelensky said late Monday that Ukraine's cross-border incursion launched on
August 6 was partially to "compensate" for Kyiv's inability to strike deeper
into Russian territory.

He has been appealing to Ukraine's allies to allow his forces to use Western-
supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russian territory as part of
efforts to thwart more aerial bombardments.

Ukraine's army chief Oleksandr Syrsky said his forces had made fresh gains in
Kursk recently and now controlled 100 towns and villages across 1,294 square
km (almost 500 square miles).

He also claimed that Russian forces had redeployed some 30,000 troops to help
fend off the Kursk incursion, and said Ukraine had taken 594 POWs in the
weeks of the incursion -- the first time Kyiv has offered a precise figure.

Moscow has nonetheless been making steady gains in Ukraine and said Tuesday
that its forces had captured the village of Orlivka near the strategic
railway hub of Pokrovsk.

Zelensky had said late Monday that defending Pokrovsk was "difficult" and
that Ukraine was strengthening its positions there as Russian forces advance.

This week, AFP journalists saw civilians evacuating by train from Pokrovsk,
once home to around 60,000 people, with panicked residents carrying their
belongings in bags and pets with them.